


eight

by Thomas_Fooll



Series: Numbers (Joshler) [2]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Josh Dun Being an Asshole, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 12:08:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thomas_Fooll/pseuds/Thomas_Fooll
Summary: AU where Tyler is in the middle of making himself, and for Josh everything is not a big deal yet. When it becomes one - it's already none of Josh's business.





	eight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a translation from Russian. You can read my original work at https://ficbook.net/readfic/5988225 if you want.
> 
> This is a part of a finished series that I'm planning on translating, the game of reference-hunt is on. Comment down below if you have read all the works presented in the series at the moment and what you have found.

Old habits are left behind this autumn. They dissipate into thin air and it seems like he's not his own person, but in reality that's just the making of himself and his ideas that's going on and on, and Josh says to him:  
"It's freezing outside, put a warm coat on".

Like these words are supposed to take over Tyler's actions, delivered through these stupid voice messages. Two days before the wind under his collar made it seem like Tyler was a dead leaf of a tree, and now he has this fucking flu, and his throat is all clogged and sore, like it's being strangled by a steel clutch of sorts. The making happens along with this nasty frost in the beginning of September, and in his head there're these lines by Fukuyama about the end of history, and his 'it seems like I've been wrong' afterwards. Even Fukuyama changed himself, then why Tyler can't?

Josh leaves his lectures to walk out to the hall, fighting the urge to smoke and buy himself a cup of shitty thirty-cent coffee in the vending Fortune Wheel Machine. Josh can't stand his, Tyler's 'pseudosuffering'. But the making goes on still.

In the city there're birds and plastic rubbish bags flying around the streets, and now suddenly Tyler has some random aquaintances from the faculty of Arts - School of Avant-garde Desined for Snowflakes - but no friends closer than three hundred miles away. He wraps himself into the blankets in the night, falling asleep in these red socks that are definitely are not supposed to be slept in, and he dreams of noses of different shapes, as though all his world's secrets are encrypted in those noses.

Old habits are left behind, leaving his unshaved October cheeks cold, as easily as their expired relationship is, as his habit of drawing faces and writing about things he saw are. Now he doesn't need to take those two notebooks of his with him: why should he? Unfinished oil painting of Faceless Josh has gained a couple pounds of dust on itself, and is probably abandoned forever.

"Look, I'm sorry, but you have changed too much".  
Or  
"What now?"

Go figure what is worse.

"Sleep is for the weak".  
Or  
"I don't know how I got here".

Go figure what is look like lie more.

"I would love to care for you but I'm so tired of your bullshit", - the only truth for today, and that's enough. This November, when his eyes are closing by themselves faster than the brain gets what's going on as a result of insomnia, he doesn't need anything else.

In the city there're clouds swirling above buildings, settling on the birds' feathers and someone's hair (a truly great ones to sell), and all the songs are suddenly only about unrealizability of dreams and hangover, the city pond clutches his hand, pulling him into its dark watery embrace, biting his forearm with an even Line of the Border of Water and Air - it's about two inches thick.

Josh starts his Suburban War, while Tyler calls birds to have at least one in his hand, but all the birds hide in the bushes that divide lawns in the White Housed Blocks of Picket Fences.

In a White Housed Block the Sleep Castle of his parents looms red weather vane shaped like a rooster, he climbs to the attic through the door on the ceiling of his room, and huns ghosts, dripping out of his previous Objects of Passion. They're here everywhere, they're here forever. Josh Dun would roll his eyes and cringe.

Josh is feeling a lot better. The only thing is, he smokes too much, but that's not that big of a deal yet. When it becomes a big one - it's not Josh's business anymore.

There's something else in the attic of the Sleep Castle with a red rooster of the weather vane that stands out among the others in this White Housed Block of Picket Fences: a warm sore feeling of nostalgia in the stomach, burning his guts as a sip of hot tea without milk would, causing this crippling urge to listen to the old songs. He brings in there a half of his stuff from their room and Zach watches him do it with this look of his, the one that reads: "again? Tyler?" yes, again, because it's December again, and because he has this making thingy going on again, and he is suddenly left locked up in the coldest city of the world - Columbus is covered with a blanket of snow, and a string of water in a tap rivets his attention for a few hours this evening.

In the Blue Shard - the main office building of the city, piercing the sky of the downtown, his photos are left forgotten in a folder on the chief editor's desk of a local magazine, and they are in this snow, too. Every notion he ever had is in it, covered, smashed, failed. And the making goes on. Old habits are left behind in the snowstorm in December.

Josh Dun smokes into an opened window on his balcony, and comes back with a cold torso and empty thoughts, sits down, puts on himself consequently: socks, jeans, T-shirt, - and walks out of the room, shutting the door behind himself. Nothing personal, just friendship with benefuts, even though their friendship is just a word at that point. The last opportunity to feel the touches of one another and graze over the skin of each other's shoulders while silently thanking everything for this moment. This is a part of the making. The part where the habits are left behind.

In the snow-covered Sleep Castle of Josh's parents there's a big window opening into the backyard, and there's a weeping willow hanging over a frozen pond. Everything has this white crust, and Tyler remembers how five years ago they were giving all these places their names, and the willow was the Weeping Intensity Of Love, Life, Obedience and Wonder, a stupid abbreviation now stained with a taint of memory. Nostalgia in Josh's Sleep Castle is cold and intense, with the smell of their bodies and masala, writhing it's face and rolling it's eyes, and the tea inside is cold and diluted with milk and tastes of chamomile. A ritual of leaving the old habits behind includes sips of this tea everywhere, where the nostalgia has a taste.

Josh says: "You are completely different now".

Tyler knows that, and that's when the making  
Ends.


End file.
